Well, well, well. The Guardian has written about education, and I agree with it! The story is some months old, but the research it reports will remain true, and always was true, as reality-based educators have known since time immemorial. The research states that teaching pupils in classes grouped by ability improves the results of…
Once again, data has shown what right-thinking people have known for years. And I have been pointing this out over and over again. The latest PISA rankings have been published – these are the results that show how each country’s education system is doing. In England, things are looking up, as they have been since…
Phillipson was awful. Powell promises to be even worse. I could weep for our schoolchildren with such hapless Education Secretaries. They don’t want rigour, they think exams are too hard, and they are overseeing the closure of many schools following the cruel Labour policy of taxing education. Empirical evidence shows that children do worse under…
I recently wrote that the relief I felt after Bridget Phillipson was sacked as Education Secretary might be short-lived with the appointment of Lucy Powell as her replacement. I was right. The first few utterances of the new Minister have brought home my worst nightmares. She has claimed the spelling test for primary school leavers…
I expressed serious criticisms about Bridgette Phillipson, the recently-sacked Education Secretary, so it was a relief when she lost the brief. But my relief might be short-lived because her replacement, Lucy Powell, could be even worse. Astonishingly, in an interview in 2019, she described the idea of spelling tests for primary school children as ‘draconian’.…